Even Trump Can’t Promise His Tariffs Won’t Raise Costs

Donald Trump still can’t promise positive dividends for Americans as a result of his “concepts” of an economic plan.

The president-elect dodged a direct question regarding his tariff plan during an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, refusing to acknowledge that his intent to impose massive tariffs on three of the United States’ biggest trading partners would ultimately hurt American wallets.

“Economists of all stripes say that ultimately, consumers pay the price of tariffs. Can you guarantee American families won’t pay more?” asked NBC’s Kristen Welker.

“I can’t guarantee anything. I can’t guarantee tomorrow. But I can say that if you look at my—just pre-Covid, we had the greatest economy in the history of our country—and I had a lot of tariffs on a lot of different countries, but in particular China,” Trump said.

He then boasted that he had effectively created the post-Covid boom, which saw the American economy returning to life (thanks to President Joe Biden’s efforts) after almost completely stagnating due to the global pandemic.

Trump then falsely claimed that Mexico and Canada’s trade deficits with the United States were “subsidies,” rather than indicators that America’s neighbors are purchasing more of its goods than they’re selling in return. In 2023, that differential—or deficit—was nearly $41 billion with Canada and $162 billion with Mexico, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Trump also vastly overinflated the reality of the deficits, wrongly asserting that the U.S. is “subsidizing” its neighbors to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars each.

The solution to that fake problem, according to Trump, is to turn Mexico and Canada into states.

“If we’re going to subsidize them, let them become a state. We’re subsidizing Mexico, and we’re subsidizing Canada, and we’re subsidizing many countries all over the world,” Trump said. “And all I want to do is I want to have a level, fast, but fair playing field.”

Trump declines to guarantee that his tariffs won’t spike inflation pic.twitter.com/28GEzdEc7a

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 8, 2024

Trump has promised to tackle inflation by imposing extreme tax cuts and tariffs on countries around the world. The MAGA leader has floated several tariff ideas—including one impossibly high hike between 200 and 2,000 percent on imported Chinese goods.

Businesses across the country have balked at his numbers, with CEOs arguing that it will be Americans, not foreign countries, who pay the price.

Readying themselves for a second Trump administration, companies whose business models rely on foreign suppliers—from the auto industry to some of the nation’s most popular clothing lines—are already planning to introduce price hikes on their products.

“We’re set to raise prices,” Timothy Boyle, chief executive of Columbia Sportswear, told The Washington Post in October. “We’re buying stuff today for delivery next fall. So we’re just going to deal with it and we’ll just raise the prices.… It’s going to be very, very difficult to keep products affordable for Americans.”

Trump has also proposed a more modest 20–60 plan, in which his second term would impose a 20 percent worldwide tariff alongside a 60 percent tariff on Chinese goods. But even that plan would prove devastating for the economy, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, which found that it would lower household incomes by an average of $3,000 in 2025.

In a joint letter released before the election, nearly two dozen Nobel Prize-winning economists formally warned against Trump’s economic plan, arguing that the MAGA leader’s stiff tariff increases and tax cuts would spell disaster for the average American.